er energies to Professor Flick. She asked him all the
questions she could think of concerning folk-lore. The Professor was
benignant in his explanations. He was, she assumed, quite compassionate
over her ignorance on the subject. She was greatly interested in his
American accent. How strong it was, and yet what curiously soft and
Southern tones one sometimes caught in it! Dolores had never been in the
United States, but she had met a great many Americans.

'Do you come from the Southern States, Professor?' she asked, innocently
seeking for an explanation of her wonder.

'Southern States, Miss Paulo? No, madam. I am from the Wild West--I have
nothing to do with the South. Why did you ask?'

'Because I thought there was a tone of the Spanish in your accent, and I
fancied you might have come from New Orleans. I am a sort of Spaniard,
you know.'

'I have nothing to do with New Orleans,' he said--'I have never even
been there.'

'But, of course, you speak Spanish?' Miss Paulo said suddenly _in_
Spanish. 'A man with your studies must know ever so many languages.'

As it so happened, she glanced quite casually and innocently up into the
eyes of Professor Flick. She caught his eye, in fact, right under the
moony spectacles; and if those eyes under the moony spectacles did not
understand Spanish, then Dolores had lost faith in her own bright eyes
and her own very keen and lively perceptions.

But the moony spectacles were soon let down over the eyes of the
Professor of Folk-Lore, and hung there like shutters or blinkers.

'No, madam,' spoke the Professor; 'I am sorry to say that I do not
understand Spanish, for I presume you have been addressing me in
Spanish,' he added hastily. 'It is a noble tongue, of course, but I have
not had time to make myself acquainted with it.'

'I thought there was a great amount of folk-lore in Spanish,' the
pertinacious Dolores went on.

'So there is, dear young lady, so there is. But one cannot know every
language--one must have recourse to translations sometimes.'

'Could I help you,' she asked sweetly, 'with any work of translating
from the Spanish? I should be delighted if I could--and I really do know
Spanish pretty well.'

'Dear young lady, how kind that would be of you! And what a pleasure to
me!'

'It would be both a pride and a pleasure to _me_ to lend any helping
hand towards the development of the study of folk-lore.'

The Professor looked at her in somewhat puzzled fashi